The first 30 minutes of The Killing Joke is awful. (Spoilers)

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So, thanks to your recommendations, I went and watched Under the Red Hood (at a reasonable rental price!) and I really found it surprisingly enjoyable. I think I'll rent The Dark Knight Returns this week, and I couldn't find the Phantam one for rent, so I'll wait to see it.

But, now I'm a little confused on something in The Killing Joke, but I have to reference Under the Red Hood to explain it, so spoilers for both!

In TKJ, the comedian dresses as the Red Hood when he's with the criminals and falls into the acid, but in Under the Red Hood, the second Robin dies because of The Joker and becomes the Red Hood, so is that just proof that TKJ's Joker's backstory is bogus?

And, as a side question, how many Robins are there then? I didn't know there were multiple. The first became Nightwing and the second is Red Hood, but are there others? And, why did the first Robin go on his own and become Nightwing?

Member

So, thanks to your recommendations, I went and watched Under the Red Hood (at a reasonable rental price!) and I really found it surprisingly enjoyable. I think I'll rent The Dark Knight Returns this week, and I couldn't find the Phantam one for rent, so I'll wait to see it.

But, now I'm a little confused on something in The Killing Joke, but I have to reference Under the Red Hood to explain it, so spoilers for both!

In TKJ, the comedian dresses as the Red Hood when he's with the criminals and falls into the acid, but in Under the Red Hood, the second Robin dies because of The Joker and becomes the Red Hood, so is that just proof that TKJ's Joker's backstory is bogus?

And, as a side question, how many Robins are there then? I didn't know there were multiple. The first became Nightwing and the second is Red Hood, but are there others? And, why did the first Robin go on his own and become Nightwing?

Jason becomes the Red Hood as call back to Joker being the Red Hood. That much of Joker's backstory we can believe.

The Robins are:
Dick Grayson who later becomes Nightwing and then Batman. He becomes Nightwing after disagreements with Bruce to have his own identity and work in his own city without his dad calling the shots.

Jason is second and you saw his story.

Tim is third and becomes Robin shortly after Jason dies. He's not in the movie but Jason really dislikes him (at first) and sees him as more proof that Bruce didn't love him. Tim takes on the mantle of Red Robin when he gets older.

Stephanie was Robin for a bit but DC doesn't want you to remember that because she's a girl. She's back to her original identity, Spoiler, now. Was also Batgirl for a bit.

Damian is the current Robin and was originally Robin to Dick's Batman.

Helena Wayne was Robin in Earth 2. She's now in the mainstream stories as Huntress.

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that

Finally got around to watching it. Honestly, this felt like they cut out parts from a Batgirl script they had and stuck it to the front of The Killing Joke. The sex scene was just as bad as I feared, even in context.

I would have preferred a Batgirl animated film over this. There are good parts to work with. Like a villain becoming obsessed with her, Barbra trying to prove that she is capable, etc. But this just shits on all of that very suddenly. Barbra calling Bruce out on his metaphysical bullshit was a good moment...but then a few minutes later she's saying the same clichéd things.

I think the worst thing is the Batgirl focus felt completely disjointed from.the rest of the film, so The Killing Joke portion felt rushed. It was like a DVD extra that was edited into the film. As troubling as some of the First Act was, I found myself wishing we could have gotten more of that and less of the rest of the film.

Member

An article from the panel attendee who snarked at the panel and got called a derogatory term by writer Brian Azzarello.

I will say that Azzarello's take on Batman has never sat well with me; he adheres to the "Miller" belief that Batman is a psycho thug and all-around messed up person mentally; that comes through in his work, and in my view has always been a poor interpretation of the hero to make in general.

That Batgirl quitting makes her a stronger character because it was on her own terms? In the context of the movie I would disagree with that greatly. Bruce gives her a speech about how she has never looked into the abyss. The thing is, their last interaction in that point in the story is Barbara quitting and saying that Bruce was right. She looked into the abyss and doesn't known how someone could do that all the time. So Batman was right, and she quits because she lost control of her temper...twice. It's just shitty writing.

The movie is just all over the place. It feels like the first act is an attempt to flesh out Batgirl as a character so that the audience is either more moved by her being brutalized later in the movie, or so they're not as upset about this just being about women being put down. But the first act does more harm than good. She attacks him, they have sex, she acts like a jilted lover about it, losers her temper again and almost beats someone to death, and then quits. All in the span of 10 minutes. It doesn't make her strong or Batman more fallible at all. We see him basically ghost her, and then it moves to an action set piece. He acts like a dick once but then everything he says about her ends up being true.

Most of her character development comes from her talking about her relationship with Bruce to her stereotypical gay best friend. Seriously? This is how people are writing female characters in 2016? This is some shit out of a 90s sitcom.

DC Animated needs to just move on. I don't need Timm, or Hamill, or Conroy involved to enjoy these movies. They've done great work in the past but all three were here and it ended up hot garbage. Like offensively bad.

Like I said before, the premise of them having sex like adults do doesn't bother me. The execution here was juvenile. If you told me they gave a 13 year old a DVD of Basic Instinct, a Batman comic and then had that kid write the first act, I wouldn't be shocked.

There was a criminal who called himself the Red Hood. One day he fell into a cat of chemicals, had his skin bleached, and began calling himself the Joker. Years later, Jason Todd picked up the Red Hood name as a reference to that man.

Funny enough, all four of the first four Robins have adopted an identity based off of another character: Dick becoming Nightwing was a Superman reference, the aforementioned Jason was a reference to the potential origins of the Joker, Tim Drake adopted the Red Robin mantle that first appeared in the elseworld story "Kingdom Come" and Stephanie Brown eventually became Batgirl.

Sonic handles my blue balls

The reception to the movie had me cancel my theater tickets to it. Saw it via a free rental and it was good. First thirty minutes are useless fluff but the actual retelling was good. I kinda regret listening to all the reviews that said it was bad overall.

They do in the DCAU. Batman Beyond even refers to a TKJ-like event (Barbara: I see you've sewed up the bullet holes."). Bruce has pics of his previous dates and Barbara was one of them. He is dating/cheating on her in Mystery of the Batwoman. Then the comics reveal she was once pregnant by Bruce.

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery

I just saw this yesterday. Totally agreed on the first 30 minutes being utterly pointless. Why would you waste a third of the animation budget on that when it didn't advance the story in ANY way whatsoever.

And as bad as the beginning was, that ending....oh boy. What the fuck was that?